


By Unconventential Means

by Sandalaris



Category: Leverage, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 08:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5490305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandalaris/pseuds/Sandalaris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With their demi-goddess dealing with family drama, Nate drinking to control the Other Guy and the new kid's problem with authority it's amazing the world gets saved at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Unconventential Means

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ultra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultra/gifts).



> So the prompted asked for an Avengers/Leverage crossover, but after four chapters and just barely scratching the plot playing in my head, I realized that it was much too big to have done in time. Will still post it, but later, when the holidays are past.

"This is just like Budapest," Parker chirps happily, releasing another arrow into the skull of an incoming space creature.

"You and I remember Budapest very differently," Elliot mutters in return, but she shrugs it off, already taking aim at another target. She doesn't have time to decipher their social differences at the moment.

Above them Hardison is shooting repulser beams at the oncoming swarm while Sophie's hammer goes flying past.

"I need to get higher," she warns before taking off to scale a nearby building, leaving Eliot behind to deal with the approaching aliens on ground level. He excels there, with hand to hand. Or hand to weapon. Either way, he's the victor.

She reaches the top in time to hear Nate's rage filled roar escape into the air, causing several of the mult-limbed creatures to turn towards the sound. Parker smiles.

-

Her shoulders and back ache pleasantly the next day, the burn of a job well done. It's not surprising, they saved the city, this time in front of witnesses. She's not entirely sure how she feels about that last part.

Before them, bound in special Asgard chains, is the man who caused all the trouble to begin with. Having come to Earth because he didn't like how his sister had chosen a mortal over being his right hand on the throne, Sterling had apparently taken his need for lawful order to the extreme and issued a surprise attack in an asinine attempt to bring Sophie to heel. The mortal she'd chosen, now back in regular clothes and no longer a giant green rage monster, stands beside the trickster goddess as she glares at her brother.

"Did I miss anything?" Parker asks Tara, whose traded in her spangled jumper for an equally skin tight jeans and sparkly top mix. Eliot comes up beside Parker, one eyebrow raised as siblings' silent stare off.

"Just the love birds arguing it out," the woman replies, turning to watch as Hardison pulls up in a flashy convertible.

"I have to go back, Nate," Sophie says, turning back to the man in question. "I may not qualify for heir, but Father can hardly put Sterling on the throne right now. The All Father declared Earth an ally. Even if my brother can argue that he didn't know, Odin won't step down until he's sure Sterling has seen the errors of his way." Her arms cross, one rubbing lightly against the other as she glances away a moment. Her voice is softer when she continues, "He can be especially cruel. My Father will need someone to speak reason in his ear."

"And you're the one to do that?" Nate says in a clipped voice.

"Well," drawls Sterling, looking bored, "she's not called Silver Tongue without reason." 

Sophie's dark eyes narrow at her brother, and Nate places a hand on her arm to keep her from falling into a bickering match with Sterling.

Parker tunes them out, choosing instead to watch as Hardison begins showing off his car to a grudgingly admiring Eliot.

-

Nimble fingers riffle through her quiver as Parker searches for the right arrow, quickly locating and notching it into her bow. Sharp eyes watch the rapidly moving practice dummies, several already sporting feathered shafts in fatal places. Around her is mostly darkness, everyone else having long gone home, but Parker needs the distraction this night.

"Nailed it," says a quiet voice as the arrow hits its mark.

She glances at Eliot out of the corner of her eye, noticing his worn sweats and thin top. He's been training too.

"Who're you sparing with?" she asks, eyes trained on her remaining arrows in search of the one she wants. She pulls one half out before dropping it back.

"Tara," he replies and Parker frowns, images of the spandex clad woman playing through her head. Not many can hold their own against Eliot, the master assassin having long ago earned his title as the best, but the genetically advanced super soldier from the past just might be up for the task.

"She's still here?" she asks, giving Eliot her full attention for a moment. Tara had been declining IYS's offer for months, preferring to travel on her own and immerse herself in present day culture.

"Yeah," he says, watching with furrowed brow as she finds the arrow she wants. "I think she's planning on sticking around until Sophie can come back." She pauses a moment to absorb his words.

"How is he?" she asks after drawing her bow back and taking aim.

Eliot shrugs, watching her select her target. "Drinking. But that's to be expected." 

She watches him as she releases the arrow, trying to gauge by his expression if he's worried. She's not very good at this, not the way she is at archery, where she doesn't even have to hear the thunk of tip into wood to know she hit her intended target. Reading people has never been her strong suit, and she can't tell how Eliot's feeling at the moment, but she thinks he's OK.

Of all of them, Eliot is the most protective and of Nate especially. The man being the entire reason he's alive, and an agent with IYS. Eliot's former employer had sent him to take the older man out, presuming him to be too much of a threat. A suicide mission, and one doomed to fail, when Nate's alter ego turned out to be unkillable. Facts they already knew, but had failed to tell the assassin they sent after him.

Parker hadn't even been an agent back then, tied to IYS on a job by job basis. They paid her, she did what she was asked, she left. She'd been on a routine mission to gather information on Nate's angry alternate self when Eliot had shown up.

Two days running around the side of a mountain with a surly alcoholic, a bitter mercenary, and a vengeful third party out to kill them all had been all it took to cement her, and the two men, into a team.

"He in control?" she asks after a moment, attention back on her quiver and looking for the right arrow.

"Hardison seems to think so. Nate's staying with him."

"What do you think?"

Eliot pauses a moment, staring at one of the moving targets that resembles a pincushion more than a person.

"I think Nate's an honest man whose been dealt a bad hand. Using the Hulk to save people...." he looks at her, studying her face and she doesn't know what he sees, what he wants to see. "I think it was good for him."

Parker suddenly has the feeling the subject has changed on her, leaving her feeling unsure as she tries to find the point it switched from Nate to....whatever it is they are talking about now. She frowns down at the arrow in her hand, changing her mind and replacing it in search of a better one.

Eliot follows her gaze, letting out an angry noise as she finds the one she needs and notches it.

"These are all the same," he growls and she relaxes as things settle back into normal. "Why do you keep picking through them?"

-

Parker is crouched on the top of a billboard for real estate, enjoying the wind this high up as she scans the surrounding areas for threats to her team. Her bow is in her hands, relaxed but waiting for when she'll have need of it. 

Eliot is on the docks, taking out the gray clad guards while Tara is inside the loft apartment across from Parker's perch, talking her way into the trust of the eco-terrorist trying to wipe out power to the city. In her ear is the constant chatter of Hardison, whose AI is currently trying to dig up any digital evidence of their plans, Nate making humming noises as the genius laminates on how he could do this in his sleep and he thought "saving the world would be more exciting."

There's an abrupt screech of sound, the low background noise of Eliot's fight having been cut off abruptly and Parker whips around to stare at the spot he was just a moment ago. The water looks black, shining in places like a cut jewel, but there's a messy bit of foam near where the one-time assassin used to be.

 _"Parker,"_ Nate calls suddenly, _"you got eyes on Eliot?"_

"Negative," she replies, already scaling down to find a better spot to get the building next to the billboard. "He's in the water."

 _"Maintain position, Parker. Maintain position."_ Nate's command cuts her off as she was about to jump onto the roof of the neighboring building. _"Tara, do not blow your cover. I repeat, do not blow your cover."_

She grits her teeth against the urge to go after Eliot, it's stupid, she knows it's stupid. She of all people knows exactly what Eliot is capable of, and a little swim in the bay is well within his skill set. But her throat closed when the Eliot sounds in her comm cut off, chocking her with the need to get to him. 

Breathing steadily through her nose and keeping sharp eyes on the spot her partner went under, Parker stays put. Her fingers twitch on the bow with unspent tension, wanting to stretch the line back and release onto a target. She debates a moment on loosing an arrow into their midst, just to provide a bit of distraction for when Eliot takes them out, because he will, it's irrational to think otherwise, but so far they believe Eliot is the only intruder and it's not wise to alert them to her presence.

A dark figure comes up behind them and Parker has to squint to try and make them out. They are sticking to the shadows, avoiding the softly lit areas as they sneak closer to the men on the docks. Moments later three of the four are down and the last is quickly following, and Parker is breathing easier as recognizes Eliot's distinct style. 

Five minutes later, Tara is crashing through the fourth story window, the device designed to wipe out the power in one hand, signature shield in the other. Hardison flies down in his red and gold suit to provide cover while Parker disables the nearby vehicles. 

Another fifteen and they are all at the rendezvous point and the archer finally lays eyes on the still dripping Eliot while Nate calls into headquarters to let them know the threat has been neutralized. 

-

Her fist hits Hardison's face with a hard thwack. Not enough to break the bones in his nose, but enough to hurt. 

The tech savvy genius had asked for lessons from Eliot. Although, "asked" is a stretch, more like pushed and annoyed, but Parker is pretty sure that's how the man tries to make friends and she's known Eliot long enough to know it's working. As evidence by the fact that she's the one doing the actual hitting. She's far less likely to injure the eager young man, having started combat training only after joining IYS, her previous focus on her natural skill set of sneaking in and out of places undetected. Eliot's been honed to kill, Parker to spy.

With a quick flip and a twist, she has the younger man pinned, neck caught between her thighs in less than fifteen seconds.

"You're not aware of your surroundings," Eliot instructs, already moving her back into position. "You're gotten too used to your little toys telling you what's around you."

"Hey," Hardison snaps without heat, "LUCILLE is not just _'some toy.'_ She's a highly advanced _artificial intelligence_ that I invented at _fif_ teen." He climbs to his feet makes a point to dust off his jeans as he does before muttering, "I'd like to see you invent so much as a word document. Ungrateful..."

On the sidelines sits Nate, casually sipping a scotch as he browses on a laptop. Parker's not really sure why he's here, probably something to do with team bonding, or more likely with Sophie's continued absence. 

"Again," Eliot says, correction Hardison's stance when his hips aren't aligned correctly. "Swing with it. And use your reach to your advantage."

It's nearly half an hour later before their inventor yields, limping over to an amused, and drunk, Nate and sitting beside their unofficial leader.

"Want to go a few rounds?" she asks Eliot, ignoring the way the words want to catch in her chest, come out clunky and awkward, her heart suddenly pounding and something akin to fear climbing up her throat.

He looks at her a moment with a strange intensity that tells her he can see what's happening (and she almost wishes he'd tell her), before he looks down, a slow grin spreading across his face.

"Naw," he says, loosening shoulders with a small shrug, "you're not there yet, sweetheart'." He looks back up, making deliberate eye contact that leaves her feeling off center more than the previous adrenaline spike. "But when you do, I'll be here."

A frown touches her features before she shakes it off, not ready to examine what happened too closely just yet, and she turns to see Nate watching them with knowing eyes. Without a word she makes her way to the edge of the mat to stretch out her muscles, stubbornly ignoring the feeling of eyes on her.

-

"Is that fish?" Parker asks with a frown, eying the large platter Eliot just placed on the table.

"It's good and you'll try it," he says over his shoulder as he heads back into the kitchen. 

Hardison invited them all to live in his tower, and it is a tower, as much as he tries to call it a command center. For all intent and purpose it looks like Nate has moved in, and Parker could always use another bolt hole, although no power on this earth or off is going to convince her to give up her warehouse. Eliot had brought some personal belongings into his quarters, but it was hard to tell how much his rooms at the tower is "home" to him. Tara had just laughed when the inventor offered, but Sophie, once things were settled back home enough to come back, had taken to decorating her quarters with a vigor Parker found absolutely frightening. 

In celebration of Sophie's return, Eliot was preparing a meal, the rest of the team set to arrive in an hour. Parker had shown up early in an attempt to steal pieces of Eliot's cooking before grabby hands could get to them, but so far he had only prepared things she hadn't tried before and wasn't sure she wanted to.

"Hey, Eliot," she calls, gaze caught on the four other chairs thoughtfully as she leans against the table, "if Sophie is a princess and Nate's a fugitive, will her dad still let them be together?" They've been on her mind a lot lately, Nate and Sophie, especially now that the latter was back planet-side. They were always hot gossip; the alien demi-goddess who came to Earth and somehow ran into Hulk's human alter-ego, already under IYS surveillance, in a small city in Canada, it would any agency talk.

"I think the fact that she's a thousand-year-old alien probably plays more a part," he answers, his focus on the skillet he's currently searing something long and green in. "Why?" he adds after moment.

She pauses, still staring at the chairs and imagining them there but separated as opposed to side by side. It hurts.

"It's just...sad. Or something. Them not being allowed to be together."

"Well," replies Eliot thoughtfully, "she came down on her own before, so I don't know how much say this Odin has over her. Plus, isn't she adopted? It's not like she has to marry as Asgardian and produce an heir or anything." He trails off as he reenters the room, kitchen towel over one shoulder and hair held back in a patterned bandana, and Parker suddenly wonders why he's telling her this, why he's not telling her he doesn't think about them and she shouldn't either. But she knows, so she doesn't ask.

Instead she cocks her head to the side, doing some studying of her own before asking, "What about IYS? Will they stop them?"

"Won't matter," he says, "Nate's not loyal to them. He's loyal to the mission."

"Are you?" she asks before she can think better of it, breathing out the words.

Eliot walks until he's standing before her, hip against the table as he reads her face and Parker feels the same rush of diving from a sky scraper, bow in hand.

"Am I what, Parker?" he asks carefully and she's not even sure what he's asking exactly, but she knows what he means, and that it's up to her to answer. Has been since the Moreau job and Eliot had looked at her with a free man's eyes and an offered hand. She'd ignored it then, not wanting to see, content with her slowly building family and too scared to risk losing it. 

She doesn't have answer, not when the question is hidden in layers and double meaning and all the things normal people learn growing up. But Parker has never been normal, and has no intention of being so now. 

Pushing up on her toes and angling her head, Parker bridges the gap between them, feeling the brush of air, warm and moist, against the edges of her lower lip before she presses them against his. She lingers, steady and soft for a moment, hoping this answer will do when words are what he asked for, before she leans back enough to allow their breath to flow between them. 

The separation seems to release Eliot from whatever demons were holding him still as calloused fingers brush her cheek, tracing paths up to her hairline before rough palms firmly cradle her jaw, holding her in place. _He could kill her like this._ The thought is fleeting, a dispassionate acknowledgment of the man before her, already gone before his lips touch hers once more.

Capturing first her lower lip, then her upper, Eliot kisses her with a soft pressure, keeping her in place as he slowly explores. Licking out to run the tip of her tongue along the seam of his lips to capture the suggestion of a taste. All salt and the edges of desperation that she doesn't know the owner of. She presses forward, clever fingers wrapping into the flannel at his sides, and releasing a noise she'd never heard before from the back of his throat. 

He separates slowly, moving his hands to the back of her head, fingers tangling lightly in her hair as he forehead connects with hers, his breathing far too erratic for the tame actions they just participated in. Parker's fingers flex in the edges of his shirt, her own breathing a little unsteady.

Eliot leans back, looking at her with his steady gaze.

"Does this change us?" she asks quietly. They've been ParkerandEliot for so long that they thought is more frightening than it should be.

Eliot takes a moment to answer, and she can tell he chose his words with care by the way they come out. "Only how you want."

Parker thinks about, thinks about how things are, how she wants them to be, how he might want to be, before smiling and leaning forward to kiss him again. She's better without words, and Eliot seems to understand as he grins against her lips.

-

The grate pops off with a rough sound, quick reflexes allowing her to catch it before it hits the ground. Well toned calves securely hook her into the lip of the air vent Parker has used to enter the building. No one is here, this part of the lab closed down for the evening, but Hardison hadn't given word that the pressure sensors are down yet.

 _Bit overkill,_ she thinks, setting the grate onto a nearby counter before lowering her body into the room completely. This isn't supposed to be anything other than a small research facility, the rumors of ties to the long defeated Serpent Brotherhood barely whispers. Even IYS had declared it a Non-Priority, but Nate got wind that they may have had a part in his son's death, and subsequently his own accident, and now they're here.

This mission wasn't on the books, there is no back up, no government agents waiting to provide support. They have their skills and each other and Parker is thrilled in a way she hasn't been since her days in the circus. Before IYS and paperwork and rules.

Over the comms, smaller and sleeker and provided by Hardison, Parker can hear Sophie distracting the security guard, perfect French rolling off her tongue as she giggles and flirts with the unsuspecting man. Hardison and Eliot are bickering good naturedly in the server room and Nate is giving instruction while monitoring for signs that the authorities have been called. 

_"Alarms clear,"_ Hardison says before snarking back as Eliot growls something about special shoes.

With a flawless back flip, Parker lands on the tiled floor. A small grin tugs her lips as she scans the room. Been a long time since she did this without official sanction. Didn't realize how much she missed it.

There's a file cabinet against one wall, simple lock at the top. It's easy to pick, and already she knows there's nothing of value in it. Inside are employee records and some progress files on getting plant product to decompose faster. She takes a couple of pictures anyways, just in case.

Scanning the room, Parker training kicks in, eyes sharp for signs of a safe or hidden compartment. The desk is clean, a couple of mini-chocolate bars the only thing of interest, but as she's moving back the wall behind her catches her attention. Running light fingers over the surface, she feels it, the beginning coolness of reinforcements that hints at a safe. Brushing aside the picture of some element she doesn't recognize, and continuing her light exploration, the archer closes her eyes in concentration. There, the slightest difference in depth, an edge that if she follows upwards will- with a soft push a large square section of the wall springs slowly backwards on a hinge, having blended in near-seamlessly with the surrounding lab wall.

With a happy gasp and gleeful grin, Parker takes in the Glenn-Reider 512 safe. She's never cracked one of these before, never had reason too. And with barely contained near manic glee, Parker sets to work attempting it.

-

Back at the tower, the team refuses to tell Nate anything until he agrees to listen from Hardison's reinforced Hulk Room.

"Guys, come on," the older man begins, "I think I know my own control well enough."

"This is about your son," Sophie says, having gotten the gist of what the files Parker found contained. "You're not always rational when it comes to him."

A barely suppressed wince crosses Nate's features a moment and he looks away.

"Com'on, man" Hardison says with a gleeful grin, "you think I spent all that money on you a safe place for you to go and not use it when needed? Shoot, if I'd wanted a cage for ya, I'd've just given the designs to the police and hacked your criminal record."

"You can do that?" asks Parker with sudden interest.

"Woman, computers are my niche," he gives her a smug grin, pressing a few buttons on his smart phone that brought to life the wall of screens to his right. "Hell, if I hadn't taken an interest in programming and created LUCILLE, I probably would have made hacking my go to money maker." He winks at her playfully, flash of teeth in his grin. "Age of the geek, baby."

Behind her, Eliot steps forward until he's a line of barely contained energy at her back. She automatically gives him a grin over her shoulder as thoughts of what she might have been had she not gone into spy work playing through her mind.

"There's a way for me to get out?" Nate asks suddenly, "on my own if I need to."

Hardison gives him a look like Nate's an idiot before swirling one finger through air before calling, "LUCILLE." 

On cue, a female voice answers from around them, _"If you are in possession of your facilities I will release the doors at your command, sir."_

One fist by Nate's side clenches a moment before he nods, making a bee line towards the far cabinet and pulling down two bottles. No one says a word as he then makes his way towards the other guy's quarters.

-

Someone brought in a desk and chair, a laptop placed on its surface allows Nate to sit before the webcam, the system linked into the screens before the rest of the team in what appears to be a rather large movie room. 

Next to Parker Sophie is silently sulking, having wanted to enter the room to be by his side while they delivered their findings, but he had refused, instead taking the bottles and settling himself into the desk chair. 

"We good to go?" Nate asks as everyone settles into place. "Hit it, Hardison."

The genius starts for a moment, looking up as he realizes that he's supposed to start. "Right. Uh. The hard drives were mostly clean, what little I could dig up was deep in the system. Like there's no reason to go that deep, and I'm still sorting through it, but um." He pauses to click a few things on his keyboard, a document popping up on the large screen next to Nate's head. "The files Parker retrieved from the safe, they are _pret-ty_ damning." He stops, looking at her before turning back to the screen. "Are you sure you want to hear this? It's not pretty and it doesn't change anything-"

"Just tell me."

Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Hardison opens them and says with a steady voice. "They were falsifying test result to make it seem like children between the ages of seven and twelve had aggressive forms of cancer. They then experimented on them under the guise of treatment. They were trying to recreate the super solider serum Captain Cole received using a combination of radiation and some experimental chemical compounds." He pauses again, saying the next part carefully. "The accident, when your son coded and you ran into the room..." He stops again, looking at the screen where Nate has his eyes screwed shut, head bowed, and one visible fist clenched. "They considered the experiment a moderate success after... the Other Guy broke out of the hospital."

"Nate?" Sophie says softly.

Parker's eyes are glued to the screen, watching the fine trembles traveling up Nate's arms as he struggles to maintain control. Hardison's laptop makes a soft sound as the program finishes.

"They killed," Nate grits out, raising his head to look at the screen before him, "my son. Over an experiment."

"Nate?" Sophie calls again, voice breaking at the very end as the grieving man's blue eyes start to fade into something more akin to lime.

"There's more," Parker says suddenly, "and you won't get to hear it if you go all grr." Hardison makes a chocked off noise on the other side of Eliot, who places his hand over hers. She's not sure if he's trying to warn her or support her, but her focus remains on their hurting leader. 

Taking a couple of deep breathes, Nate slowly relaxes, bit by bit. He's bends over in his chair, the barest edge of a tightly clenched jaw visible as controlled breathing comes over the surround sound. By the time he looks up, he's adopted an outward expression of calm, but his eyes are still too green for Parker to believe he's even a fraction less angry. He's just exchanged fire for the hardness of ice, letting his anger solidify inside him instead of raging at the world.

"Hardison," she says, still not taking her eyes off of their leader, "what else is there?"

It's the horrified silence that has her tearing her gaze away, looking at the young genius as he stares wide eyed at his computer screen.

"Did you find who authorized the experiments?" Eliot asks after a glance at the laptop, his own untrained eyes not understanding what it is that Hardison sees.

With a mute nod, Hardison slowly looks up. "IYS."

On the screen is silence.

-

A freshly redressed Nate sits at Hardison's kitchen table, Sophie on one side with a calming hand on his back and murmuring words in his ear every few minutes. He seems half asleep, rumpled head resting on the smooth surface, but he mutters something back too often for anyone to believe he's calm. It had been a short episode, Nate stiffly standing and walking off screen only to rage and beat against the walls off camera. He came down quickly as well, causing him to wake earlier than usual.

Parker is leaning against the kitchen counter, arms crossed as Eliot stands beside her.

"So if IYS are bad guys, and we work for IYS, does that make us bad?"

"We were just following orders," Eliot replies in a low grumble, and Parker looks at him, remembering his former employers and the dead eyed man on the mountain side.

"We did good," she says suddenly, making a decision. "Doesn't matter who our bosses are. Besides," she adds with a quirk of her lips and a bump into his side, "we work for Nate. He leaves we leave." It's suddenly much simpler once she says it out loud. 

Speaking up so that Hardison can hear her from his place on the love seat behind the dining area, Parker asks, "How do we take them down?" When three new sets of eyes look at her she cocks her head in confusion. "What? They're the bad guys. We fight bad guys. How do we stop them?"

They continue to stare at her blankly.

"Listen," says Parker stepping forward and addressing Nate, "people like that, agencies like that, they have all this power and pull, and IYS used it to hurt you. And people like you. Right now, you're under a huge mountain of suffering, but we have the leverage. Let's use it."

Realization seems to dawn on Sophie before the rest, the other woman blinking at her a moment before she starts to grins. "It is what we do," she says slowly. 

"You're talking about taking out taking on a government agency," Hardison adds from the back.

Parker looks at him, one eye brow raised, smirking. "It wouldn't be my first."

Behind her Eliot leans forward until he's standing fully. "We're with you," he tells Nate, "all the way through. We'll follow your lead."

Red rimmed, currently blue eyes look at each of them in turn before Nate looks back at Parker. With a slow nod the weight on his shoulders seems to lift.

"OK," he says, glancing over at Sophie to see the beginning of an excited smile blooming on her face, "what do we have?"

-

**Three months later**

The news has been talking about nothing else, footage of Director Blackpoole's arrest playing every few hours as headlines go on about the fall of IYS and it's possible connection of the Nazi group Serpent Brotherhood. The connection is mostly false, breadcrumbs added by Hardison when they uncovered information that some of the former scientists and agents received get out of jail free cards by agreeing to work for the secret agency. But it makes for a good story and is a near guarantees none of the people involved in Sam's death will get off on a technicality. 

"Are you still watching that?" asks Eliot as he brings a bowl of chips and a case of beer into the communal television room. 

"I like seeing us," Parker replies.

"You know you can't actually see any of the team on there."

"Sure you can." She hits rewinds on the remote, waiting as the live news backs up a few minutes before hitting stop. "That's our shadows," she says pointing one long arm at the screen.

Eliot squints at the screen, studying it a minute before shaking his head. "There's something wrong with you, darlin'." He settles next to her, planting a quick kiss on her lips before putting the bowls and case on the counter. "They're going to be here soon," he says taking one of the beers for himself with a little flip of the bottle. "Hardison's insisted on Star Wars because of Sophie, so if you're planning on watching this you might want to DVR it."

Parker's reply is cut off as the inventor's voice comes into the room, the man following shortly after, Nate and Sophie with him.

"I thought they called you Loki?"

"They did," Sophie replies. "It's my name. Or at least it was then. Doesn't really fit with the world now. Especially with that god awful reputation tied to it." She makes a face, settling onto the sofa adjacent to the one Parker is perched on before chuckling slightly. "Sterling insisted everyone call him Thor, thought it made him sound more manly. That was back when he'd borrow my hammer to go hunting with his Misgardian buddies, before Father spelled Mjolnir so only those who are just can lift it."

"I thought Sterling was supposed to be like the crown prince or something," Hardison says with a raised brow. "Doesn't that make him, like, the head honcho of justice."

"No, no," Sophie replies with a shake of her head, "Sterling values order and law. A king has to know when justice has to be put aside of the sake of the realm. My brother took that lesson to heart."

"Can we just put on the movie?" growls Eliot, settling back into the couch as the others take their seats.

Hardison pulls out a remote and begins pressing buttons, muttering something about grumpy cowboys. 

_"Sir,"_ comes LUCILLE's voice from above, _"the construction crew has arrived."_

"Dammit, woman," he shouts at the air, "I thought they were scheduled for next week."

_"Shall I tell them come back, sir?"_

With a sign Hardison stands. "Nah, let 'em in. They wonn't be workin' on this floor anyways."

"Construction?" Nate asks.

"Yeah," Hardison says as he types a few commands on this a tablet. "For Leverage, Inc." He looks up and grins at them all. "I figure that's what we'll call ourselves. Our crime fighting team."  
"What?"

"Why are we called Leverage?! Who gave the authorization to name us?!"

"Call ourselves?"

"'Crime fighting team?' I like it."

They all start talking at once, movie night forgotten as they focus on the still grinning genius. Parker looks around and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Not as Eliot/Parker centric as I planned, and less kissing as well, but still a cute little fusion in my mind. I hope you liked it and Happy Holidays!
> 
> Accidentally posted this twice under a different title. I actually like that title better, but this one had the little edited bits I preferred in it, so I deleted the other one.


End file.
